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Knowledge competencies and (R&D) activities are one of the most important sources of innovation and have been widely discussed in the literature. In comparison, the role of the competitive environment for the innovation activities of firms is still open to debate and has not been fully understood yet. Therefore, this paper intends to provide new evidence on the interaction between knowledge competencies and R&D activities of firms on the one side and their competitiveness in the market environment on the other. In particular, the moderating function of market competition is explored. In this respect, the analysis covers the main innovation types as well as both sectors, manufacturing and services.

The empirical analysis is based on a three years panel dataset of German manufacturing and service firms obtained from Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP) and Community Innovation Surveys (CISs: 2011, 2013 and 2015). For the estimation, a binary instrumental variable treatment model with Heckman selection method is used. Also, it provides a suitable approach to estimating the binary variables in order to cope with endogeneity concerns.

The estimation results show that R&D activities and knowledge competencies are positively related to innovation activities of different types conditioned on firms' specific perception of their competitive environment, in terms of outdated products/services as well as strong competition from abroad. Most importantly, the results from the moderation estimation reveal that there is a significant difference between the manufacturing and service sector. Service firms engage more in internal R&D activities on generating product innovations while the manufacturing firms conduct more external R&D on specific types of innovation. Further, the authors find that strong competition from abroad positively and significantly reinforces the effect of knowledge competencies on innovation activities for more types in services than in manufacturing. In contrast, outdated products and services tend to decline the effect of knowledge competencies for some innovation types in both sectors. The authors also observe a positive and significant reinforcement effect on knowledge competencies. However, it is found more beneficial for service firms since they can employ more innovation strategies.

The focus of the study is mainly on the impact of firms' competitive environment on innovation activities in various types through its interaction with knowledge competencies and R&D activities, across manufacturing and service firms.

This paper aims to explore and propose the skills and capabilities required in developing products and services within UK university spin-offs (USOs) by considering the model of products/services development (Verona, 1999).

Mixed methods of 20 in-depth interviews and questionnaire survey with 204 founders of USOs were used in this study.

The findings contribute in filling the literature gap by proposing key knowledge and capabilities required to develop products/services within the unique and non-commercial context, in which USOs are created by academics who do not necessarily have entrepreneurial or business experience.

This research contributes to studies of product/service development by proposing a modification of elements within the existing theoretical model to be applicable to the specific firm and country context, such as USOs in the UK. Further, the study extends knowledge on the interplay between knowledge management and product development. The applications of the findings are that they can inform academic entrepreneurs on the capabilities significant in the development process. They can also act as indicators to technology transfer offices in what is needed for the provision of appropriate support and training to academic founders/entrepreneurs to foster and enhance other entrepreneurial activities.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of customer trust, religious commitment, customer’s knowledge on customer intimacy and its impact on relational commitment and repurchase intention, especially in Sharia banks in Indonesia.

This study was conducted in Sharia Banks in Jakarta Bogor, Tangerang Bekasi (Jabotabek) area. The population of this study covered all bank customers. Because of the large population, the researchers took samples of the population. The partial least square (PLS) analysis tool was also appropriate to be used to analyze data from smaller samples. In total, 100 respondents were selected using a snow bowling sampling technique in August–September 2017.

Higher customer trust enhances the customer intimacy. Stronger religious commitment also strengthens the customer intimacy. It has been confirmed that customer intimacy enhanced the relational commitment among clients in Sharia banks in Indonesia. The results show that high customer knowledge is able to encourage customer intimacy, and high customer intimacy is also able to encourage repurchase intention. On the other hand, it was found that customer knowledge was not directly able to increase the intention of repeat purchase. However, from the mediation test (indirect effect) is seen with high customer knowledge, supported by the high customer intimacy, it can indirectly increase the high repurchasing intention.

There are some research gaps that were considered as the theoretical foundation and research framework in this study. The focus of this study was on the role of customer intimacy in mediating the influence of trust and religious commitment on relational commitment. Based on the empirical review, this study attempted to develop customer intimacy antecedents by testing religious commitment, which becomes the originality of this study. This study was done based on some empirical results indicating that the antecedent of customer intimacy still varied while it needed to be immediately developed. Furthermore, the inconsistencies in the correlation between customer intimacy and relational commitment were later re-examined in the context of Islamic banks. It was assumed that the test would result in different findings as the test was done in a different countries and institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationships among collaboration competency, partner match, knowledge integration mechanisms (KIMs), and e‐service product innovation.

Data were collected from 118 financial firms in Taiwan. IT managers were chosen as the source for data collection. Furthermore, partial least squares (PLS) was used to address sophisticated data analysis issues.

Collaboration competency and partner match relate positively to KIMs, which in turn relate positively to e‐service innovation. In addition, partner match relates positively to collaboration competency. Also, the findings show support for the mediating effect of KIMs on the relationship between collaboration competency and e‐service product innovation.

First, KIMs are the central mechanism through which collaboration competency enhances e‐service product innovation is novel and noteworthy. Second, the study can help researchers to better comprehend partner match and analyze it as a partner‐led enabling mechanism. Third, this study extends an important direction for service product innovation research that lies in adopting an e‐service innovation perspective.

IT managers should mobilize collaboration competency in conjunction with KIMs and should highlight the centrality of KIMs in e‐service product innovation. Managers should examine whether the firm has the necessary technologies to develop particular levels of new e‐service products and to determine which technologies need to be developed. They would also need to consistently and synergistically align their strategic innovation choices.

The findings of this study fill the gap in the service management literature that currently fails in examining these determinants that affect e‐service product innovation. First, the paper helps to clarify the nature of e‐service product innovation. By studying de Brentani's classification of innovations, the paper views e‐service product innovation as two types of radical and incremental innovations that affect the ability of a firm to deliver desirable new services/products to customers via the internet. Second, based on Gallouj and Weinstein's work, the paper addresses the visibility (i.e., tangible or intangible of technical characteristics) and the degree of standardization (i.e., specifying service characteristics, making service characteristics less hazy and more concrete, and giving service characteristics a shape), which constitute innovations in e‐service products.

The purpose of this research is to identify and clarify the important variables in knowledge management capabilities that affect product/service innovation in entrepreneurial companies in Jordan.

A five-point Likert scale questionnaire was designed for measuring knowledge-based (infrastructural and dynamic) capabilities and product/service innovation in entrepreneurial companies in Jordan that specialized in information and communication technology. A questionnaire was distributed to 297 individuals in 40 companies, and only 202 questionnaires were completely filled and returned by the entrepreneurs at King Hussein Business Park and Al Hassan Business Park. Structural equation modeling was applied to statistically test the research hypotheses.

The research findings showed that knowledge-based infrastructural capabilities are a prerequisite for knowledge-based dynamic capabilities. On the other hand, knowledge combination capabilities have a statistically significant mediating effect between knowledge based infrastructural capabilities and product/service innovation.

This research contributes to the literature by studying and investigating the key variables in knowledge management that affect product/service innovation and by providing a comprehensive understanding of the knowledge management capabilities and innovation in entrepreneurial companies. This research provides academicians with a framework for better understanding of the different factors of knowledge management capabilities and how they affect product/service innovation.

The importance of integrating both internal and external knowledge into the product/service innovation process has been widely recognized in the knowledge management and innovation literature. Likewise, the role of the marketing and sales function as a driver of innovation has been stressed because of its market-facing role. However, limited research has investigated the complementarity of both internal and external knowledge regarding product/service innovation performance in a marketing context. The purpose of this study is to analyze marketing departments’ role in accessing internal and external knowledge resources (i.e. marketing-specific relational capital [RC]) to reach improved product and service innovation performance.

The analysis uses empirical evidence collected by a structured survey of 346 respondents representing marketing and sales functions in Spanish companies.

The survey revealed that marketing-specific internal relational capital at the department and inter-department levels, as well as noncustomer external RC, are directly associated with product/service innovation performance. Further, the analyses show that the relationship between customer-specific RC and innovation performance is mediated by other types of RC, making it a fundamental antecedent to the innovation process. Finally, significant differences in marketing-specific RC subcomponents were found between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) firms.

This study makes a valuable contribution to marketing and management literature by revealing the types of social interactions in the marketing function that enable access to knowledge sources that promote successful product/service innovation.

There is a dearth of empirical research on the impact of external knowledge search on innovation performance in different categories of service firms. This study explores the effectiveness of the breadth of external search on product and process innovations in German firms. In particular, the author modelled a non-linear relationship between the breadth of knowledge and product and process innovations.

Drawing on the Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP) data for the German service firms in the period 2014–2016, the author reported findings from a bivariate probit model which took into account mutual interdependence between product and process innovations. Moreover, the model was separately estimated for knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and other services. For comparative purposes, the author also estimated the model for manufacturing firms.

Empirical findings uniformly indicated an inverted U-shaped effect of the breadth of knowledge on both product and process innovations. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that using up to three knowledge sources increases the probability of a joint implementation of product and process innovations. These findings hold for both KIBS firms and other services. However, those service firms that focussed on a single type of innovation experienced diminishing returns to external knowledge when exploiting more than one source of knowledge. These results indicated that a simultaneous introduction of different types of innovation required diverse knowledge sources. In contrast, when focussing on a single type of innovation, service firms experienced diminishing returns when multiple sources were used. However, this finding was only partially found for manufacturing firms. Accordingly, this study’s findings provided support for the demarcation approach, insofar as the breadth of knowledge had a heterogenous impact on innovation in manufacturing relative to service firms.

Previous studies on the breadth of knowledge search mostly examined its influence on innovation performance without separately analysing manufacturing and service firms. The present study focussed on service firms that were further divided into KIBS and other service firms. By investigating potentially non-linear relationships between knowledge breadth and product and process innovations, it illustrated how different innovation strategies were affected by a diverse pool of external knowledge sources.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Product-service system (PSS) has been attracting attentions of global manufacturing to providing high-value added services in addition to their traditional product development and manufacturing business. For this reason, it is of great importance to research PSS. The purpose of this paper is to establish a systematic strategy and a system tool for PSS design.

A requirement-driven product-service system (RdPPS) is developed using requirements analysis and knowledge management technologies. A framework is proposed to support RdPPS by providing tools and methods for requirement analysis and processing, formalization of PSS by ontology-based knowledge representation, reasoning method for PSS solution finding, and solution optimizing and assessing. Finally, the design support strategies for RdPPS are investigated to demonstrate the usability and functioning of the developed system.

Many conventional design methods did not consider the influence of customer requirements (CRs) during the planning phase of PSS design. Moreover, a broader range of knowledge is required to PSS design, since both products and services are considered.

This research provides a solid foundation for PSS, and promotes an effective means for PSS design.

A RdPSS is presented. CRs are considered during the design phase of PSS as well as both product and service knowledge.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between strategy intent (product-service innovation intention) and outcome (product-service innovation outcome), and the role that external sources of innovation play in influencing this relationship.

Using data obtained from the community innovation survey, we apply a logit regression to a sample of 1,419 Portuguese firms. By examining the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we assess how the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the involvement of external stakeholders.

Our findings reveal that the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the moderating effect of open innovation breadth. Our analysis suggests that the negative influence of different sources of innovation can be addressed by adopting a paradox lens.

This research provides valuable insights for managers. By simultaneously pursuing a differentiation strategy and engaging in collaboration with external sources, firms may compromise their ability to effectively differentiate their offer. Managers should consider the potential tensions arising from internal and external stakeholder relationships to optimize their innovation strategies.

This study contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the role of external innovation sources in influencing the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome and the importance that information systems may have in this relationship. By exploring the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we provide a nuanced understanding of how firms can navigate organizational tensions and leverage innovation for competitive advantage.